To put it as plainly as possible, if the proponents of the U.S. settler-colonialism theory are correct, then there is no basis whatsoever upon which to build a multinational working class communist party in this country. Indeed, such a view sees the “settler working class” as instruments of colonialism, hostile to the interests of the colonized people, rather than viewing all working and oppressed people as natural allies in the struggle against imperialism, our mutual oppressor.
A shame, a sad sad shame. For anyone that’s read settlers, or knows about the history of labor zionism, or prioritizes any kind of indigenous voice in their praxis, this is really bad. No peace for settlers! Settlers cannot lead the revolution! I hope we see an end to any respect given to this “settler colonialism is over” politic soon.
I’ve never seen people who insist that the settler-colonial nature of the US disappeared at some point in the past account for intergenerational wealth transfer. Do these people think that folks with all the money, land, and power tend to be white because whites just coincidentally happened to be better at capitalism on the day America “ended segregation”?
So much of this shit stems from the need to center yourself as the main character of revolutionary struggle and work backwards from there. “If I’m personally not the proliest prole to ever prole then why should I bother?” is just a few steps removed from “what do you mean I probably won’t see the post-capitalist utopia in my lifetime? Why should I bother then?” My answer to both is that if “bothering” is just posting online, giving to local charities, and voting for Democrats, then I don’t care: dress it up in whatever narrative you like; the results are the same.
Marx didn’t start his analysis of class society by going “ok so there’s two classes and I’m obviously in the good one or I might as well just tear all this shit up”. I’m fairly sure Marx didn’t die believing he’d made a giant mistake because he didn’t personally overthrow capitalism in his lifetime.
It’s just another form of the settler move to innocence, there is no point in which the relation stopped. It’s the same argument as “racism is over because civil rights!”. Settlers never stop being settlers as long as they rely on a settler colonial government structure, nearly every company you will work for is going to be using underpaid black labor and on still stolen land. The natives are still here as much as these people want to forget that. Many black people are still practically enslaved. So why do white people get to say “It’s over now I’m actually inherently revolutionary” even though their class historically has never led anything revolutionary and has been making the same argument even when settler relations were more obvious?
because liberal indoctrination trains people to see the world through the lens of individualism: “I’m white, and I don’t think of myself as privileged, so white people as a group must not be privileged”; “Sure I own a few rental properties, but I don’t think of myself as exploitative, so landlords as a group must not be exploiters.”; “My friend’s a cop, and I’ve never heard him say anything I thought was racist, so it’s wrong to say that US policing is institutionally racist!”; “I worked hard enough to own my own small business (I earned it with nothing but determination and a loan from my parents), but don’t you dare tell me that means I’m not working class! you’re basically telling all of us (me and my friends) to not even bother doing revolution (posting!)”
some people can only understand class struggle through a moral lens. they see a class contradiction, recognize a “good” group and a “bad” group, then conclude that if they’re not on the “good” side, then the taxonomy needs to change to accommodate that. it’s difficult for some people to reconcile how they can belong to groups with “bad” class characteristics and personally do good in spite of that. I don’t feel “bad” or “good” about being born white or having a settler background, but I know that any good I aim to do in this life will disempower those groups as a necessary prerequisite to empowering the vast majority of the world. I also know that the people leading those struggles must necessarily come from the other side of those class contradictions. education and expertise are invaluable assets to revolutionary struggle, but there’s a reason that successful socialist revolutions haven’t come from the most comfortable, educated elites using their superior knowledge, expertise, and influence convince everyone to give them power so they can benevolently distribute it to the grateful serfs.
A huge part of it is how liberals/conservatives criticise Marxism. The idea that classes equated to morality in Marxism and that marxists were obssessed with equality above all else was probably one of the biggest criticisms of Marxism I used to hear back when I was a liberal.
It was basically what kept me away from Marxism for a pretty long time. I used to think that Marxism was deeply rigid and moralistic so was put off by it. Now I’m beginning to understand that for a lot of people, rigid moralism is a selling point.
A lot of people have vested interest in counter-revolutionary organizations as well. For some reason, despite a lack of accomplishments, any critical look at the material cause of their issues is met with aggression. Either the orgs are actually great and it’s just those uppity black people that don’t like it (weird that white people are saying this hmm) or native people were erased so completely their criticisms don’t matter because the genociders just won.
You’re missing the point. What is the basis of most wealth generation in the USA currently? Is it the theft of land and natural resources from indigenous peoples or is it imperialism? The origin of that wealth is in settler-colonialism but that is no longer the primary aspect of the US economy.
the extraction of wealth from the imperial periphery would not be possible without the inherited wealth stolen from the indigenous people of the imperial core. the people doing the former today are the children of the people who did the latter and passed on that stolen wealth. yes, the means and method of extraction today aren’t predominantly the same as they were in earlier centuries, but the extraction of today is only enabled by and because of the extraction of yesterday. Modern imperialism develops as a method of maintaining profit when primitive accumulation is constrained by physical limitations (running out of land and bodies you can easily steal).
Where conditions make primitive accumulation possible (e.g., West Asia right now), modern imperial powers still leap at the opportunity to do it. The point is that you can’t seriously hope to roll back the spoils of modern imperialism while leaving the spoils of the primitive accumulation that enabled it intact. An “Israeli” “communist” who says “I’m not a settler, I was born here! To call me a settler is to suggest that we shouldn’t even bother trying to make a socialist Israel!” is fundamentally no different than a US, Canadian, Australian, etc. “communist” who says the same of their states. I would agree that those people would be wasting their time trying to create a “socialist Israel” or “socialist US”. Those states have no authentic historical national identities outside of settler expropriation of the people who live there. Socialism will be built on those land masses by the people who live there after they successfully destroy the settler states and eradicate the material basis for the settler identity.
I completely agree with this analysis. However I think you have shown that there is a qualitative transformation from the primitive accumulation of indigenous peoples to mature imperialism. I agree it COULD NOT have happened without settler-colonialism, but that settler-colonialism is no longer the dominant mode in most of the West—even if it is preferred as seen in the rampant plunder and subjugation you are correct to point out in West Asia.
The argument of making a ‘socialist US’ or ‘socialist Israel’ seems to be a strawman. No theoretically consistent communist wants to ‘turn a state socialist’. Marx explains “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” As such, real communists seek to smash the bourgeois state.
I more so align with the critical view of primitive accumulation that it is a constant, unending process. There’s no end to the stealing of land, the permanent underclass status given to black people. It is merely that this is the basis for a greater American imperialism which reinforces the former, but the former is still in constant need of re-enforcing in order to maintain the American state. If we’re talking about building a revolution in America, I don’t see a point to saying imperialism is the principle contradiction instead of settler-colonialism. A system such as capitalism is inseparable from the colonial conditions which it was borne of (as the Red Nation calls Capitalist-Colonialism), and capitalism will always expand into imperialism if able to. If we want to stop American imperialism, both are mutually reinforcing and need to be fought. The idea that settler-colonialism needs to be put on the back burner or isn’t a major factor in our conditions and contradictions seems to be something only people who have a personal interest in maintaining it (white) feel a need to say.